Re: Z39.50 on the web (and in print)

On Sat, 23 Feb 2002, Robert Sanderson wrote:

> 
> 
> > >I think most people would be happy to get something together, even if it's 
> > >not Explain mapped directly into XML.
> > agreed upon.  Thats why ONE-2 folks did explain lite - they have
> > already done the full explain service and needed something that would
> 
> I'm sorry, but Explain Lite is simply not sufficient :(  Perhaps it might 
> please some people, but I'm 100% certain that a better XML definition 
> could be relatively easily agreed upon that could support better 
> definitions of what Z can really do, with less confusion and better ease 
> of autocreation.

Explain Lite was not built to be sufficient for your needs. It was built
to be sufficient in a plain library catalogue environment. I think it does
its job very well. It allows me to set up my Z39.50-server using the data
in the XML file, it allows me to serve the XML file from my Z39.50 server
for automatic client setup and user discovery and it allows me to use the
file on the web for human-oriented explainations of my server capabilities
as well as for web download. All of these options are of value in an OPAC
environment. Explain will only do part of the job at many times the
effort.

If Explain really served the needs of any larger communities, I think
we would see more than spotty implementations by now, even if doing the
implementation is hairy. It may be that Explain only serves parts of the
needs in a situation where a broader, multi-environment solution is what
is actually wanted.

Jacob Hallén
AB Strakt

Received on Sunday, 24 February 2002 19:51:04 UTC